Barton County democrat. [volume] (Great Bend, Kan.) 1885-1915, 1887-08-11

Catastrophes Which Occur in the AIounta1n
Districts OF Europe.

Catastrophes which Occur in the AIounta1n
Districts OF Europe.
Many of the Swiss villages exist al
most on sufferance. The avalanche OF
snow or the avalanche of earth may ae
any moment sweep them away, or what
is equally ruInous, overwhelm them
with the debris of the mountain at the
foot of which they are built In not
a few instances the landslip is so slow
in its progress that it is only question
of time when the final catastrophe
will be precipitated. At Bee Rouge in
the Tarentaise, for example, the side OF
the mountain is gradually overwhelm-
ing the village of Mirror. In most
cases, however. the calamity is sudden
and unexpected. Such an instance
is supplied by the fall of the Rossberg.
a well known mountain, 5000 feet
high, situated just behind the better
known and loftier Rigi. In 1SO6, after
a very rainy season, a large portion af
the mountain, consisting of hard beds
of sandstone and pudding stone, resting
on soft sandy layers, suddenly swept
across the valley of Goldau, burying
four villages, comprising over three
hundred houses, nearly five hundred
inhabitants and more than eighty-6ve
square miles of fertile land. In
1855 a mass of debris slid into the val
ley of the Tiber, which damned back
by the obstruction overlooked the viii
lage of San Stefana to the depth of fifty
feet. until the drowned village was
relieved by means of a hastily con-
structed canal. Another example Of
n disastrous landslip is that in which,
by the sliding of portion of Monte
Como, the entire village of Plurs, with
2, 430 inhabitants, was in 1913 over
whelmed. For several days before the
catastrophe masses of rock had become
detached from the mountain and nu-
merous assures were observed to form
or widen on its side. But the village
disregarded the warnings and were in
a few minutes buried, with all their
possessions, beneath sixty feet of rock
and earth. All attempts to penetrate
the mass proved fruitless. and no trace
of the town has since been seen. The
earth which entombed it is now
clothed with a luxuriant forest of
chestnuts, but the original name still
survives III InO 1lIIl0 u L OI
Pluro.
1t may also be said that these catas-
trophies are so frequent that history
preserves the memory of only the most
disastrous. Such a one was that by
which the village of Elm was over
whelmed only asfew years ago. At
that time the place contained fifty
houses and nearly $50 inhabitants,
most of them children and old people.
Nearly half of them were killed, while
most of the dwelling houses were alto
gether crushed or buried beneath the de-
bris from that portion of the Tschingel
Alp, which broke away from its parent
mountain. Altogether. though the
Elm catastrophe was, in the loss of life
and property, of less magnitude than
those which overlook Plurs and Col
dau, it is doubtful whether it did not,
in the amount of rubbish shot from the
mountain side, surpass both of these
gigantic landslides. The Swiss geol-
ogists who visited the spot Immediately
after the disaster calculated that, at
the lowest estimate, the contents of
the slip measured 100000 cubic
metres. What a vast amount of ma
terial this pile contains may be grasped
by simple illustration. Zurich is
city of 10000 inhabitants. Yet in the
debris shot from the side of the
Tschingel Alp there was stone enough
to build two Zurichs. Some of the
blocks are heaped 800 or 400 feet
higher than the village of Elm. One
is estimated to weigh 500 tons, and as
these gigantic missiles were precipi-
tated from height of 1000 feet. the
force with which they fell
on the doomed village can easily be
imagined. Standard.